As a fan of neil gaiman, I have to say that none of you seem to have read the lucifer series, in which its stated that God created the universe (suns worlds and so on). But that other things like the jen-en-mok slipped into creation, and other things entered as a matter of course, I think the endless are part of the latter, and as such any arguments about how they came to be are pretty null.

Unless of course you consider the lucifer series to not apply, despite it being in the endless universe and a few endless putting in the odd appearance, the whole series is caused by dream after all.

The only time I question the right to Free Speech is when I watch Fox News, probably due to the fact that I don't think they really believe in it. -Elisa Scaldaferri

Gellert1984 wrote:As a fan of neil gaiman, I have to say that none of you seem to have read the lucifer series, in which its stated that God created the universe (suns worlds and so on). But that other things like the jen-en-mok slipped into creation, and other things entered as a matter of course, I think the endless are part of the latter, and as such any arguments about how they came to be are pretty null.

Unless of course you consider the lucifer series to not apply, despite it being in the endless universe and a few endless putting in the odd appearance, the whole series is caused by dream after all.

Sure, I read it. It is one of my favorite series. I actually like it a bit more than sandman.

That being said, you have to take into account who's saying those things, and how belief shapes reality and the past in the sandman universe.

That is, Yahweh and Lucifer of course believe that yahweh created everything, that the universe belongs to him, and that he is the most powerful entity in it. But that could just as easily be an artifact of belief: yahweh holds enough clout currently to make it as though this was always the case. Dream of a thousand cats style.

The titans, for what it's worth, referred to the endless as "an older order than yahweh's"

I don't think God created the Sandman universe, I think the Endless were around before then. Mainly because of Destruction's speech about gods coming and going and the plurality of gods in the Sandman comics and the fact that Destiny and all the other endless would surely have been needed as elements for a God to exist. I think. Regardless, Sandman ALWAYS has the power to inspire and cheer me up, despite being full of vices, it will always be kickarse for me. Apparently they're doing a film based on the spin off "Death: The high cost of living" (one of the only ones I haven't read, damn it!), and seeing as Gaiman has worked on a few films before, it COULD be ok. That being said I COULD make a man powered aircraft this summer...

RoadieRich wrote:Thicknavyrain is appointed Nex Artifex, Author of Death of the second FaiD Assassins' Guild.

Am I stupid for not being able to figure out why Loki and the Puck steal the child in the first place? Sure, Loki does not want to be under an obligation to Dream, but it says he was manipulated, and I can't figure out by whom. It could be that he got manipulated by Dream himself when he let him go after Seasons of Mists, but Morpheus is honestly hurt when Odin says he's disappointed with him, so that can't be it. Unless it's Dream doing "that thing" again (doing stuff without even admitting to himself that he's doing it) but that appears too complicated, somehow.

The only two other entities who have ever expressed enmity for Dream in the series (that I can think of now; I haven't read anything besides the Kindly Ones for a while) are Lucifer and Desire; both have, however, also said that they feel sorry for him at some point in time. Lucifer's point in time was after the Furies attacked the Dreaming, making him a likely candidate, but this appears way too simple for Gaiman.

It's enough of an open / unanswered question that Neil considered explaining it in the afterward of the TPB (which is included in the very back of the absolute edition. But he decided against doing that.) Browsing around some other forums and places it seems quite common that people think it was Morpheus who hired them, this page seems to cover in depth most of the options.

Myself, I just re-read the book this weekend and one thing that I was wondering was why Rose and her trip to England were included in the story. It didn't seem to directly touch the main plot with Morpheus and the Kindly Ones, whereas all the other asides and side-plots did. Rose goes back to England to meet Desire and get her heart back, pointing back to Desire's previous attempt to set the furies onto Morpheus. I don't think Desire is responsible here, though. Locking up the threshold and giving back the heart seem to be more of a 'seeing what I used to want come to pass, and realising I want nothing of it' kind of thing. [/rambly thought]

The Mighty Thesaurus wrote:I believe that everything can and must be joked about.

Hawknc wrote:I like to think that he hasn't left, he's just finally completed his foe list.

Having now read Lucifer, I really think that the universe Yahweh made is just one of many. Remember the man in World's End who says he follows Prez across all the different Americas? Maybe Yahweh only made one of the universes with an America in it, and there are lots of other parallel ones everywhere.

RoadieRich wrote:Thicknavyrain is appointed Nex Artifex, Author of Death of the second FaiD Assassins' Guild.

I seem to remember that the creator of the Sandman universe had nothing to do with any known religion, and was not a god at all but something that exists outside of what it means to exist. I seem to rember somewhere that the endless are cyclical, that after this existance ends they return in another one(which might make them older than the creator of the universe).

I really like the void between worlds, and when Lucifers gets a pass to outside of existance from the almighty, and creates his own modest reality

Picard- I shall appoint you my executive officer in charge of radishes

Ok, now I'm totally sure the Dream King wanted to die. Not sure about how he hired Loki and the Puck yet, though: they are unlikely to have gotten the idea to burn the mortality out of the kid on their own. Maybe he came to them in their dreams...

Well, yes. Definitely. Death says so right there when he talks to her the last time. It was all a long, semi-conscious Xanatos Roulette to kill himself.

It's just unclear whether he hired puck and loki himself (which seems too direct to me: his big goal here was to get himself killed without ever doing anything he couldn't explain to himself some other way, so that he never had to admit to himself that that was what he was doing until the very end), or whether he set something in motion earlier and someone else hired them as part of his plan...

I don't think it matters who hired Puck and Loki; what matters is that Morpheus had plenty of enemies who could conceivably hire them and Morpheus allowed the events to unfold as they did. It's a greek tragedy, not a murder mystery, and it was his own flaw that killed him.

After reading this one more time, I came to the conclusion that the stories aren't about Dream at all. He's the center of the plot, but after Preludes and Nocturnes we don't really get another book from his point of view.

The real subject of the stories are the mortals whose lives he changes.

Spoiler:

hyperion wrote:

Hawknc wrote:Crap, that image is going to get a lot of use around here.

After reading about Reception Studies (for an essay I need to write for Greek Tragedy) all day, I'm convinced Sandman is about that. Or at least just about stories, and where they come from and where they go, and who is in them and so on. The guy responsible for them is a very good focus for that sort of thing.

The Mighty Thesaurus wrote:I believe that everything can and must be joked about.

Hawknc wrote:I like to think that he hasn't left, he's just finally completed his foe list.

Amazing series . Haven't read it in awhile and only own the first 3 books. I read the others through the kindness of barnes and nobles since i was too poor at the time to afford to pay 20$ for the graphic novels (would have cost me 200+ to buy the series). That's why I don't feel like I can say anything about it except that it was amazing and I enjoyed it a lot.

LittleShadowMagnet wrote:Go figure I will have to look it up, I have no idea how I missed that

Not sure if you know about them, but after The Wake, you've also got these to look forward to:

- Endless Nights - This is fantastic, although I have to say some of the stories are more worthwhile for the art than for the text (the Frank Quitely and Bill Sienkiewicz ones for example). One of my favourite bits was

Spoiler:

Gaiman sneakily putting his mark on Superman's origin story.

- The Dream Hunters (picture book)- The Dream Hunters (comic adaptation of the above)- The Sandman Companion- Death: The High Cost of Living- Death: The Time of Your Life

And then some other spin-offs I haven't read, some of which Gaiman wasn't involved with: